


the bedroom floor (snowy brooklyn nights)

by ancientglowstick



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And no one is straight, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Gay Bucky Barnes, I don't make the rules but I make the rules, I just find it really romantic ok, Living Together, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Science Nerd Bucky Barnes, Snow, also this really could be general im just paranoid, and there was only one bed, it's brooklyn, its the 30s, sarah rogers died already sorry, they gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22192699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientglowstick/pseuds/ancientglowstick
Summary: Steve has never felt so alone. A bout of tuberculosis has him visiting the cemetery weekly, lamenting his desolate apartment, and feeling weaker than usual. At Bucky's invitation, he spends the night sheltered from the winter snow and his isolation.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	the bedroom floor (snowy brooklyn nights)

I’m sixteen and he’s seventeen and I’m laying on the floor of his bedroom. The air smells like old paper. A pipe somewhere down the hall drips lazily, faintly splashing into a pail. There’s a bookshelf on the far wall, but I can’t read any of the titles. One about DC-3 airplanes thicker than an encyclopedia is propped close to me, like it fell off his nightstand and he forgot to put it back. A pair of his suspenders lies neatly on the back of a scuffed wooden rolling chair. I stare at them for too long.

I’m nestled on a mat laid overtop the carpet, though it’s so worn it doesn’t carpet much anymore. He’s lying on his bed facing the wall behind me. His breathing is low and steady. 

It’s been colder than normal recently. Started snowing all the way back in October, when tuberculosis was going around again. October was dark. Nothing stayed long then. 

Christmas brought a lifetime’s worth of frozen pipes and chattering teeth. He doesn’t want me to be alone, he said. I’m so small. I would freeze to death too easily if I stayed at my place. I need other people’s body heat to keep me alive. Besides, it’s the holidays, and I was going to be invited to have dinner with his family this year anyway. I should stay with him, in his apartment, he said. I kept quiet, but only long enough for him to get flustered. He tripped over his words and laughed. Put an arm around my shoulders.

The invitation and the touch linger in my memory. 

Snow skirts the windowsill and my hands tremor under the only two blankets his mom could spare. The bed creaks. He turns his head too abruptly, like he was waiting up. Like he could hear me shaking. He’s worried.

“Go back to bed, Buck.” I curl tighter. Knees to my chest. Breathing shallowly, carefully, into my hands.

“Shut up.” Bucky crawls off the edge of the bed, leaving a trail of threadbare sheets in his wake. He kneels by the wooden rolling chair. I turn towards him, and I can’t help but smile. His hair is a soft, wavy mess. There’s still a tiny split in his eyebrow from last week behind the drugstore. He grins back. 

I take his hands, warm as brick in the summertime, and put them on my face. I breathe deep, or as deep as I can. He laughs in a whisper, because the walls are thin and his sister’s in the next room.

He gathers the blankets in a bundle and tosses them onto the bed. Takes my hands and pulls me to my feet. I press my head into his chest. He’s a furnace in striped pants.

He pushes me toward the bed. I sift through the blankets, curl up, and face the wall. I feel him moving the blankets around. He climbs up next to me.

“I’m fine, Buck,” I tell the dusty paint.

“Punk,” he says, lips inches from my ear.

“Jerk.”

His arm wraps around my shoulders, pulling me closer. 

We fall asleep.


End file.
